<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Goldfish by rainstormcolors</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23395483">Goldfish</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainstormcolors/pseuds/rainstormcolors'>rainstormcolors</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:28:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,252</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23395483</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainstormcolors/pseuds/rainstormcolors</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mokuba may be a bit hesitant about Atem becoming a part of his brother's (and his own) life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Atem &amp; Kaiba Mokuba, Atem/Kaiba Seto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>63</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Goldfish</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The courtyard Mokuba stepped into was rich with spring, sky glowing like blue opal, brilliant green of young chlorophyll bursting from the ground, held like orbs on the tree branches. The cherry trees carried and shed their clusters of white petals, shed like star fall over the yard. Creating beauty and throwing it away. Mokuba took slight pause when he noticed Atem sitting on the bench by the pond at the center of the green space, water lined with grey stones, a gentle babble from the tiny waterfall at its corner. But Mokuba continued on towards the pond.</p>
<p>“Hello,” Atem said to him as he approached, Atem wearing a black button-up shirt and indigo-blue jeans, a colorful beaded bracelet tied on his left wrist.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Mokuba said without emphasis, dipping his hand into the small plastic bag he’d brought with him.</p>
<p>Inside the water, among the fleck of starry petals, were the living orange jewels of goldfish, racing to the edge where Mokuba stood, opening their happy mouths as he sprinkled in a fistful of pellets. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Atem stand.</p>
<p>Atem was standing beside him now, watching the fish. They were nearly the same height.</p>
<p>“Hold out your hands,” Mokuba commanded.</p>
<p>Atem, with a puzzled look on his face, did hold out his hands. Mokuba tilted his bag so that a small pile of pellets collected in the cup of those hands.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Atem said with a hint of hesitation. He brought his hands over the water swirling with fish and opened them from the bottom like a clamshell, everything falling at once.</p>
<p>“Pft, we weren’t supposed to do it that way,” Mokuba said, with a coldness to the <em>pft</em>.</p>
<p>This Atem was a little different from the Atem he’d known before. Darker skin, his face more distinct from Yugi now. His hair was still a spray of dark color. Mokuba might have been able to get away with pretending to be distrustful if not for the fact he felt it to his core this truly was Atem.</p>
<p>“Do you like feeding the fish?” Atem asked.</p>
<p>“This is my fish pond,” Mokuba said.</p>
<p>“Yours?”</p>
<p>“Nii-sama isn’t outdoorsy, so these fish are for me,” he said.</p>
<p>The truth was the help fed the fish on most days. But there was something relaxing about feeding and watching them. There was a gentle tug to this place that felt warmer than the rest of their property. He wanted to bring Nii-sama here.</p>
<p>The rest of this place became so fractured in shadow sometimes.</p>
<p>“What is it?” Atem asked, and Mokuba realized he’d hunched at some invisible memory.</p>
<p>“What are you doing out here?” Mokuba asked, relaxing his body.</p>
<p>“Kaiba’s still working. Unlike your brother, I suppose I am outdoorsy,” he said. His voice was as warm and as kind as his face.</p>
<p>“What is Nii-sama to you?” Mokuba asked, watching Atem.</p>
<p>Atem gazed over the blue incandescence of sky, the spun-sugar fluff of clouds. “Kaiba is… He’s my friend. A good friend.” Atem smiled and shut his eyes. “He’s stubborn to a fault. Stubborn enough that I’m here now.”</p>
<p>“Not quite ready to be out yet, huh?” Mokuba hummed and he watched Atem’s face flinch, and Mokuba wasn’t sure if he regretted making the comment.</p>
<p>Mokuba hadn’t actually been sure if Atem and his brother were lovers. Atem’s eyes now told him they were.</p>
<p>Mokuba felt the small pinches of pellets left inside the plastic bag and turned the bag over the water, the spill of pellets mixing with petals and brilliant fish.</p>
<p>He’d stunned Atem enough with his comment that Atem wasn’t talking anymore, he noted, and so he turned back towards the architecture of the mansion. There was some piece in him that wanted to linger but everything felt too bright.</p>
<p>Memories felt like waves. A dark navy wave with some speck of glow. Surrounded by strangers in the stadium, Atem had opened the door and taken his hand and pulled him from that churning nightmare box. What was that feeling of salvation? Why did he trust it so much back then?</p>
<p>His brother had trusted it too, so deeply and so desperately as to chase it to the edge of the universe.</p>
<p>And Mokuba felt that maybe Atem was too brilliant for either of them.</p>
<p>Flower petals were spilling. Nature crafted beauty and threw it away, and it would create new beauty next year.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Atem spent the night over. Perhaps Mokuba’s comment had given him permission. Mokuba couldn’t guess.</p>
<p>The three of them sat at the small circular table in the enclave inside the kitchen, the wood of the table as pale as seashell. The enclave light was clear and set in hexagonal glass. Atem wore the same clothes he wore yesterday. Neither Seto nor Mokuba wore their business jackets yet. And it was cozy, an almost sugary warmth spooled around them, as Atem took bites of a bread slice with its smearing of fig jam. And Seto took sips of black coffee from a porcelain cup. And Mokuba almost wanted to shovel all the fried egg into his mouth all at once, almost felt he should leave the space as soon as possible.</p>
<p>“Isono can drop you off before he drives us to headquarters,” Seto said to Atem.</p>
<p>“I appreciate it,” Atem said before finishing off his bread slice and then sipped pink grapefruit juice from a slender glass.</p>
<p>Mokuba finished his eggs but stayed.</p>
<p>The rest of this place could become fractured in shadow sometimes, but there was something soft and kind in the air.</p>
<p>“Have you seen Mokuba’s fish pond?” Atem asked Seto suddenly, and Mokuba perked his head, stumbling a bit in thought.</p>
<p> “Is it his fish pond?” Seto asked softly.</p>
<p>“It’s nice in your courtyard. Mokuba let me feed his fish,” Atem said.</p>
<p>Seto looked to Mokuba. “I guess you’d have to be the one to order more fish when they die. Or have the same fish been in there all this time?” he asked.</p>
<p>It flickered by like dust sparkling in the air, the image of Seto when he was ten, peering into the pond waters beside him as jeweled fish bobbed at the surface.</p>
<p>“To be honest, the groundskeeper handles most of it,” Mokuba said as he tapped his fork once on the plate, “I feed them sometimes.”</p>
<p>“Do any of them have names?” Atem asked.</p>
<p>Mokuba gave a small hum as he thought. “I think a few years ago I named the littlest one Bruce.”</p>
<p>“Why Bruce?” Atem asked.</p>
<p>“Bruce Lee,” Mokuba answered.</p>
<p>“Jonouchi-kun likes Bruce Lee movies I think,” Atem said while Seto seemingly ignored the comment by drinking more coffee. “Maybe we can try watching one sometime. I mean, your brother and you and I.”</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Mokuba said.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Seto said as he set down his cup.</p>
<p>The frigid silent dinners with Gozaburo and Seto in the tall cold elegance of the dining room had melted away to Mokuba eating quiet dinners with the maid in the kitchen enclave and that had melted away to Mokuba eating quiet dinners with Seto in the kitchen enclave. The world was becoming warmer.</p>
<p>Atem stole the uneaten biscuit from Seto’s plate. Seto stared at Atem as Atem held the biscuit up to his lips and Atem noticed him watching.</p>
<p>“Did you want it?” Atem asked, wiggling the biscuit.</p>
<p>“No,” Seto said, and Atem finally took his bite.</p>
<p>And Mokuba thought maybe it wasn’t bad having Atem here too.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>